By Cathleen F. Crowley

Published 10:13 pm, Monday, November 5, 2012

ALBANY — Most hotel guests stay for business or pleasure, but some visitors in Albany are here for refuge this week.

Victims of Superstorm Sandy have come north to Albany to find an available hotel room.

A mother and daughter from Long Island moved into Homewood Suites on Wolf Road. The pair, who declined to be interviewed, don't expect to get electricity back at their home for weeks. The hotel staff is baking a cake for the mom's 89th birthday on Tuesday, said Robert Huber, general manager of the hotel.

Homewood Suites served about a half-dozen families displaced by the storm, he said. Most withstood a few days without electricity in their homes before the lack of heat and bathing finally drove them to a hotel.

"They hung tough, but after three or four days they said 'We need a break,'" Huber said.

Capital Region hotels canceled many conferences in the past week because attendees couldn't get here. Hotels also saw a modest influx of disaster volunteers, utility workers and employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to local hotel managers.

Toni Castiglia, a bakery technician for ShopRite who lives in Manalapan, N.J., had a pre-scheduled work trip to train employees at the Slingerlands grocery story this week. She usually doesn't like these overnight trips away from her family, but this time "I love it," said Castiglia, who checked into the Holiday Inn on Wolf Road on Monday night.

Castiglia waited in line for three hours Friday to get gas. She stayed home through the weekend so her car would have enough fuel to make the Albany trip.

Superstorm Sandy blew over trees and power lines in her neighborhood, including one tree that fell on her car. Castiglia's home has no electricity. Her family bought a generator right before the storm, so they have a refrigerator and some heat.

"Not everyone has generators," Castiglia said. "A lot of people are suffering."